Good Friday in the days before the Reformation

Stephanie Mann, author of Supremacy and Survival, chronicles the spiritual significance and the ceremonies associated with Good Friday in pre-Reformation England on her website.

"Good Friday was a solemn day of fasting and mourning in English Catholic churches before the English Reformation. The sacramental reality of Jesus's redemptive suffering and death were commemorated by the ritual of "Creeping to the Cross" which compares to our current form of Venerating the Cross as one of the four parts of the Good Friday service. There is no Mass celebrated on Good Friday. We read the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ from St. John's Gospel, offer sung Petitions, Venerate the Cross and receive the Pre-Sanctified Communion, reserved from Thursday's celebration of the Lord's Supper. We enter in silence and depart in silence, but during the Veneration, we hear the Improperia or the Reproaches as we venerate the Cross."

Click HERE for Stephanie's full post.